Thursday, November 17, 2011

When differentiating a regular, wide-complex tachycardia some will look at the rate to rule out ventricular tachycardia. Studies have not found rate to be a predictive finding1.

...regarding ventricular rate, significant overlap unfortunately exists between VT and SVT such that rate is not a helpful criterion to differentiate origins2.

Ventricular tachycardia technically can range in rates from 100 bpm through 300 bpm. However, a practical definition of VT would place the lower bound around 120 bpm and the upper bound around 260 bpm3.

Common terminology includes rates slower than 120 as "Slow Ventricular Tachycardia", which most often is not true VT4. Rates upwards of 260 to 300 bpm are commonly termed "Ventricular Flutter"5.